There Comes a Time

When you have kids, you're in it for life.  

There isn't any of ... "my kids are 18 now and out of the house, I'm done."

 Nope, you're in it for the long haul. You celebrate their adult milestones just as much as their childhood ones.  

They have problems and worries; they get married; they have kids.  

When I first met one of my friends. Her children were all over 18 and "taking care of themselves".

I made the foolish comment (I didn't know how foolish at the time), something to the effect that her worries were over.

She laughed. I was afraid we'd never get her off the floor,

We went to a wrestling meet last night.  I would like to say it was the first I've ever been to, but I have a vague memory of going to one several years ago, I'm assuming a nephew was involved.  

I'm not a huge fan of wrestling, but when grandkids are involved, we go.

I reminded me a bit of all those taekwondo tournaments we went to back in the day.  

However, Lynette reminded me that they were a lot smaller and much less noisy. 

This was a meet for kids age Pre-K through 8th grade, so there were a lot of contestants and a lot of parents and a lot of noise.  I read in a novel sometime about an event that sounded like "a parrot house in the zoo".  This was something like that. 

The Pre-K events were not scored.  Each contestant had three matches that consisted of a minute each.  They all received a medal.

Zane 56#  Barry 38#

The second graders had three matches of 2 minute rounds.  Barry is more into this wrestling business than Zane is; he doesn't have the skill to wrestle effectively.  None of them do at that age.  

This time after two low point rounds, he rallied and went after his opponent that made for a very exciting match as we watched the points go up.  

Barry

Zane

All this time Christian was wallering around on us when he wasn't trying to take pictures on my phone or camera. It is rather amazing to me how soon a three year old can figure out how to take not just photos, but videos on either device. 

We were plunged back into early spring temperatures this week, instead of those lovely 70s last week. You know, 40s with right at freezing lows.

And snow.

I didn't want to walk around outside, but the boys spent one half hour outside playing. I couldn't persuade them to wear gloves, but in a half a minute they were back in putting them on. They had a nice time until someone got carried away and Christian came in crying with snow in the neck of his hoodie. A change of clothes and hot cocoa soon improved everyone's mood.

Barry loves to drink my ensure, but I don't let him very often, since it is an expensive drink.  He asks nearly every time he sees me, so this time I told him it was expensive and meant to be a treat.  Zane asked how much and I told him $1.50.

So, he went to his piggy bank and gave me a dollar.  He encouraged Barry to go get 50 cents, and he did.  So, he's getting his ensure, and I'm going to figure out a way to give them their money back. 

I play about 42 games of UNO in the day and a half I'm looking after those boys.  That isn't much of an exaggeration.  I usually bring playdough, but they've been tried of it lately so I brought my pattern blocks.  I had a wonderful time with them, but they may be a bit fiddly for this age and time. 

Christian made sandwiches. 

My efforts.  

The only interest Barry had in them was to mess up mine. 

Monday last week, we went up to check out Lorene's toilet because it was leaking.  Zane called a few days before to explain the problem, so he as well as all the other boys were interested in the project. 

After the toilet fixing we played a game of UNO, all 7 of us.  I was totally impressed with the skill, interest and sportsmanship of those boys.  

I have finished quilting on this quilt for the season. I have all the "Sunbonnet Sue" blocks quilted around and the filler blocks minimally done.  

This poor quilt is rather badly put together.  The corners don't match, some of the filler blocks are too big for the space so there is puckering, the girls aren't spaced on the blocks the same. Some have small feet, some crowd the bottom, the parasols aren't the same distance from the bonnet.  Either the person appliqueing didn't care or several people made blocks.  

The fabrics are pretty and when it is all done, I think most people will look at that instead of the faults.  I haven't quilted anything for decades, and never anything this big, so this makes a good learning project for me.  

Ideally it should have been taken all apart and redone, but thinking about it gave me so much anxiety, that I'm just going at it as is. 

These are some of my favorites. 

Now, it is time to start on wedding planning, in which deep cleaning the house is a part.  At least until yard cleaning is a priority.